For more than 60 years, G. Brandt Meat Packers Ltd has produced traditional sausage and deli meat products in Canada. The company’s handwritten recipes have been passed down from generation to generation, but its equipment is state-of-the-art – because Schröter has been supplying the company with its systems for over 20 years.
Artisan-Quality Deli Meats in the European Tradition
In 1958, Gerhard and Ida Brandt founded the family business, which is now in its third generation. Today, its wide range includes sausage products such as salami, frankfurters, wieners, mortadella, and the Polish specialty kolbassa, as well as cured and cooked ham products. “We use only the best ingredients and are proud of how we make our products,” says Richard Brandt, one of Brandt’s four managers.
Since 1997, production systems from Schröter have been the basis for doing so. It all began with the delivery of a THERMICjet® HR-6 hot-smoke cooking system with SMOKjet® RH wood-chip smoke generator. The next project followed in 2003, when the Canadian company began expanding its production capacity and increasing its productivity. In 2005, the company launched the industrial production of raw sausage and once again relied on the East Westphalian equipment manufacturer’s experience. In order to be less dependent on the purchase of fresh meat, the company decided in 2007 to invest in Schröter’s defrosting systems. Since then, Brandt has been able to respond to market needs in a much more flexible way and avoid purchasing meat at times when prices are extremely high.
“Our partnership with national and international meat producers made it necessary in 2019 to invest in a distribution center with cooling chambers. This also included our order for an additional semicontinuous production line from Schröter,” reports Richard Brandt. “We added a cooling unit to the part of the system in the hot smoking zone so that Brandt can use the line to carry out the necessary curing, drying, hot-smoking, cooking, and rinsing processes,” Dietrich Schröter says, explaining the details, adding: “For the Polish kolbassa – which is a cold-smoked product – the SEMIjet® now offers the added capability of aging the products at temperatures ranging from 14 °C to 28 °C.”
Wiberg Equipment Sales, Schröter’s Canadian representative, was responsible for ensuring that the six-week project was completed smoothly. “Wiberg coordinated all of the processes on-site. This included providing the necessary installation equipment such as forklifts, hoists, ladders, and site trailers. Furthermore, Wiberg was responsible for hiring and coordinating the individual contractors such as electricians; supplying technicians for water, steam, and compressed air; and roofers. Everything came together perfectly,” says a satisfied Richard Brandt, meaning that there is nothing standing in the way of future projects together.
Interview
Schröter’s well-engineered systems and excellent local service have impressed us for over 20 years.
In an interview with MeetingPoint, Brigitte Brandt, vice president of G. Brandt Meat Packers Ltd, and Charlie Saldutto, operations manager at Brandt, explain why they value their company’s long-term business relationship with Schröter.
MeetingPoint: How long have you been working with Schröter?
Brigitte Brandt: We’ve been using nothing but Schröter systems since 1997. We highly value the fact that Schröter is a family-run business and that the company always responds directly to our needs. In addition, Schröter’s Canadian representative Wiberg Canada is a reliable and professional partner that offers prompt delivery and local service.
MeetingPoint: Why have you repeatedly selected systems from Schröter?
Charlie Saldutto: The solid and well-engineered system technology is simply outstanding. In addition, it offers a technical availability of nearly 100% – meaning less work for me.
Brigitte Brandt: The systems’ airflow concept ensures that our products dry uniformly and lose very little weight. That impressed us right from the start. Furthermore, Schröter uses controllers from the American company Allen-Bradley and the InTouch HMI visualization software. This is an advantage for all Schröter customers because there are enough technicians out there who are familiar with these systems. At the same time, rapid assistance from Germany is always available via InTouch.
MeetingPoint: What benefits does your new Schröter system offer?
Charlie Saldutto: What’s special about our new SEMIjet ® is that we can use this system not only for traditional hot-smoked products such as wieners, frankfurters, mortadella, and cooked ham, but also to cold-smoke specialty products such as Polish kolbassa.
MeetingPoint: Ms. Brandt, Mr. Saldutto, thank you very much for your time.
Wilhelm Berger founded Wiberg GesmbH in Austria in 1947 to offer sausage producers high-quality, ready-to-use spices with a consistent taste. In 1987, Richard Welzel founded Wiberg Corporation in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. As a sausage-maker with many years of experience in the food industry, he expanded the Wiberg business model to North America. In addition, he founded the Wiberg Equipment Sales division that same year, offering a large number of new and used meat-processing systems from various manufacturers. The company’s collaboration with Schröter had begun 40 years ago on the initiative of Richard Welzel, who, at the time, worked for the Höchst pharmaceutical group in Toronto. Richard Welzel has now had a close relationship with Schröter for more than four decades – longer than most marriages these days.
“One of our goals is to offer high-quality products at competitive prices and excellent service to customers worldwide,” Welzel explains. “With our experienced, multilingual team of 100 employees, we can develop a wide range of solutions tailored to our customers’ needs.” And this also applies to Schröter’s complete range of hot-smoking and cold-smoking chambers, drying and defrosting systems, and intensive chilling systems.
